Wrath
by kepulver
Summary: [G1] Pipes learns a bit more about why Huffer hates Earth so much.


**Author's Note: **takes place in the mid-1990s, in same universe as the stories posted here under "28 Pipes" as well as "Tokens" and "Cold Comfort" Written for the 7 Deadly Sins challege at Live Journal.

* * *

**Wrath**

"We'll be in Marcus, Ohio until at least tomorrow afternoon." Inferno's lazy drawl sounded even lazier than usual. "Sooner you two can get here, the better. We're gonna need your help. This place got hit awful hard. Never seen anything like it in all the years I've been on Earth."

"I know Inferno." Huffer fought to keep control of his temper. He could feel himself losing the fight. "Pipes and I were caught out in it, remember?"

"I know, I know. I'm sorry." Inferno's voice was the same soothing tone he used with Red Alert when the security officer was on one of his tirades. "How's the little guy doing?"

Huffer looked over at Pipes who was shuffling along beside him, optics straight ahead and unfocused. "He's mobile. We're moving as fast as we can. He got hit pretty hard in the left leg near his wheel wells. Bad enough he can't transform and if he doesn't have some kind of internal frame damage, I'll be amazed."

"I'm fine." Pipes sounded tired -- even his considerable strength and endurance had their limits, and a night spent cowering in a drainage ditch while a tornado tried to toss them around like toy trucks seemed to be one of those limits. "Was just a power pole; I got a couple dents, that's all. I'm fine."

"And a shock. Those power lines were still live and they lashed him and me both. We're lucky we didn't get surged to death." Huffer felt his grip on his temper slipping even further. "What's wrong with this crazy planet, Inferno? I thought these storms only hit in the summer months? It's November!"

"Nah," Inferno said, drawing the word out. "Perceptor says they can hit any time of the year. They're rarer in the fall and winter 'cause the conditions are less likely to be right, but they do happen. He's about overloading himself over this chance to study anomalous weather patterns. Real excited."

"He would be!" Huffer snapped. "It's easy to be excited about something when you're not the one who was out _in_ it! We'll be there when we get there, Inferno. Huffer out!"

Huffer turned off his radio with a sharp click. He felt himself shaking as he continued walking alongside Pipes who had also lapsed back into silence.

For now, Huffer was glad of the lack of conversation. As angry as he was, he'd be all too likely to snap and say something hurtful to Pipes -- which was the last thing he'd wanted to do. He made a mental note to apologize to Inferno as well, once they arrived in Marcus. It wasn't the tall-bot he was angry with.

If anything, he was angry with the planet Earth. Bad enough he was stranded here until Primus knew when. Bad enough every day and in every way he was constantly bombarded with reminders that this world was not his own. But to have the psychotic mudball of a planet break what he'd been thinking of as the rules and attack him was the final crack that broke the bridge's back.

"Huffer?" Pipes said after a quarter of a mile of trudging. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry? For what?" Huffer asked, startled enough that he stopped walking.

"Bringing you out here." Pipes stopped as well, looking at him with apologetic optics. "We shoulda stayed closer to the Ark. I jut wanted to see those flea markets."

"Pipes, I'm not angry with you!" Huffer's own optics flashing with distress as Pipes flinched at the tone of his voice. He fought to make himself sound calmer. "No, really. I'm not. The flea markets were -- well, they were silly and I hated being stared at, but I didn't think they were terrible."

Pipes's optics brightened shyly. "You didn't hate it?"

"No," Huffer smiled back, taking a step closer and putting his hand on Pipes's shoulder. "I didn't hate it."

"So, why are you mad?" Pipes asked. "I mean, you didn't hate the flea markets and we're both okay so there's nothing to be mad at, is there?"

Huffer paused before answering, startled and a little sickened by how easily Pipes threw off the terror of the night before.

"I hate this planet," Huffer said. "I hate being stuck here. I hate being reminded each and every time I wake up from a rest cycle that I'm on an alien world and that chances are good I'm never going to get to see Cybertron again."

Pipes didn't say anything. Huffer searched his friend's face looking for understanding. His opinions weren't popular among his fellow Autobots. It hurt sometimes that they mocked his homesickness -- or worse -- hinted that his discomfort on Earth was a sign of xenophobia, the so-called "Decepticon Disorder." But on the whole, he'd learned to live with being misunderstood.

But with Pipes, it was different. The younger mech listened to him when he talked -- not just about Cybertron, but about everything.

"But, you came on the Ark," Pipes said and to Huffer's relief and surprised he sounded curious rather than judgmental.

"They needed me," Huffer said. "Much as I love Cybertron, much as I knew I'd miss it, it was more important that I come along." He laughed, soft and bitter. "And I didn't know we'd end up gone for as long as we were."

"Oh." Pipes started shuffling along again. "That makes sense. I mean, you gotta follow orders and if you were essential, there's no way you could stay home. But why do you hate this place so much? I mean, Cybertron's home but it's a lot nicer here too. I mean, sometimes."

"I hate it here because everything around me is a reminder that I'm not on Cybertron," Huffer said, following at Pipes's side, one hand resting protectively on the younger mech's cab. "The people, the landscape, the animals, even the sky's the wrong color most of the day and at night, there's only the one moon and that's made of rock and all the stars are in the wrong places."

"Yeah, I got really lost a few times 'cause I was looking for the Seeker's Wing and couldn't find it," Pipes said. "But, I mean, it's not so bad here, Huff. It's weird, but it's pretty, y'know?"

Huffer didn't answer. He didn't have the words -- or at least, no words he wanted to say out loud. They were coming up on the outskirts of Marcus. With a sigh, he turned his radio back on.

"Inferno? We're here," Huffer said. "Where should we meet you?"

"Come over the railroad tracks and down Main Street. We're using the local church as our base of operations. You can't miss it." Red Alert answered the call, sounding overworked but efficient as usual. "Inferno is assisting the locals in the search for bodies."

"Oh," Huffer said. "How bad is it?"

"They've just raised the death toll to twenty-two," Red Alert said. "Another body was found in a drainage ditch not far from here. If you two can lift, we can use you both to help clear debris. The storm hit a trailer park and it's not pretty. If not, we can find somewhere to keep you two out of the way."

Huffer sighed again, nodding uselessly. "I can help," he said. "Pipes should sit this one out."

"I'm okay!" Pipes said. "I'm just a little sore, that's all."

"Work it out between yourselves. I've got work to do, Red Alert out."

"Acknowledged," Huffer said as they started moving down the street. Huffer took the lead down the narrow street, while Pipes trudged along behind him and paused occasionally to stare at the damage.

Huffer didn't look. Or at least tried to avoid looking more than he had to. Here and there, he could see traces of what had once been homes: fragments of trailer skirting, drywall torn like cardboard, roofs smashed by trees or telephone poles and personal items scattered about like confetti. Glass and other small debris crunched under his feet, making him wince internally and thank Primus that he wasn't rolling over it.

He tried hardest to avoid looking at the humans. For once, he almost wished they were staring at him rather than at the wreckage of what had been their homes, their town. He could hear sobbing coming from a few places as the humans found fragments of their lives that had been destroyed -- or, in a few cases, that had been spared damage.

Behind him, he could hear Pipes making small, fretful sounds. "Why didn't that one get destroyed?" Pipes asked and Huffer was thankful that he'd had tact enough not only not to point but also to keep the question confined to their radios.

Huffer stared at the house Pipes meant. It was nothing special, just a small yellow and brown one-story home probably less than half a vorn old. They'd seen hundreds of them on their trip East. The only remarkable thing about it was that it seemed to have been untouched by the storm -- not a window cracked nor a shingle out of place.

"I don't know." Huffer was surprised to feel his anger rising again. "Nobody does. Well, Perceptor could probably tell you. That is if you felt like listening to a lecture on wind currents and probability theory, but even then all that will just boil down to 'sometimes tornados skip houses.'"

"Oh," Pipes said. "Can't they do something about it? Stop them somehow?"

"No." Huffer said it out loud, louder than he intended to. Switching back to radios, he continued: "No, they can't. They can hide when the storms come and hope that this time their luck will hold out and they won't lose everything."

Pipes was quiet as Huffer continued talking.

"Humans are afraid of the Earth," Huffer said. "Of its power -- and I can't blame them. They have warning systems in place to tell them when a storm is coming but they're helpless to prevent or stop them once they start. And the same goes for tidal waves and earthquakes and blizzards and all the other disasters this psychotic mudball throws at them. All they can do is ride things out and pray for the damage to be minor."

"Things weren't like this on Cybertron," Huffer said, stopping so that he could turn to face Pipes. "I'm willing to bet no matter how bad things got for you and the others while we were gone nobody on Cybertron was afraid of the planet itself. Cybertron is home, Pipes. It doesn't matter if you're an Autobot or a Decepticon, Cybertron is home, it's where we belong and it will never, ever hurt us the way the Earth hurts humans."

"Why don't they go crazy?" Pipes asked.

Huffer caught himself before 'What makes you think they haven't already?' slipped out. "I don't know. I guess that's part of their strength, that they get knocked down by their own home world and then carry on despite it all."

"Then if they can, we can," Pipes said. "C'mon, Huff, we gotta help. Can't let this planet win."

Huffer said nothing, only watched for a moment as Pipes limped past him and on down the street. A smile, rare even before he'd come to Earth, flickered over his face before he followed.


End file.
